by rational choice theory. For Adorno, “certainly a ratiothat does not wan-
tonly absolutize itself as a rigid means of domination requires self-reflection,
some of which is expressed in the need for religion today” (1998a:138). But
by this, he does not advocate a return to a religious or theological world-
view. He observes that such a conclusion is often “cheaply marketed in order
to provide one more so-called stimulus...by which the members of a cal-
culating society are calculatingly made to forget the calculation under which
they suffer” (1992:294). Rather, Adorno argues that part of the motivation
behind religious practices, expressions, and longings, is to be understood as
a longing for a better world, and for an objective truth. Because of this, the
study of religion offers critical theory a rich site in which to analyze social
contradictions and tensions. Thus, although far from advocating a ‘return to
religion’, the Frankfurt School theorists call for a return to the criticism of
religion, and for greater critical attention to the social conditions in which
religious traditions function. For, in Horkheimer ’s estimation, a philosophy
that seeks to be anything more than “scientism” is itself entangled with the
same dilemmas as theology: “Knowledge is ultimately governed by purposes.
Theology wants to be free of earthly ends. It is both lower and higher than
any form of knowledge” (1995b:235). The problem with a rigid positivism is
that, forgetting its own historicity, it clings to its narrow grasp of its object,
which effectively reduces the object to an irrational myth based on subjec-
tive presuppositions, and results in a theory no more reliable than the meta-
physical beliefs it seeks to escape.
To be sure, neither Adorno nor Horkheimer were able to develop thorough
studies of particular religious communities in their lifetime. Adorno com-
pleted a few very sketchy examples, none of which encompasses the more
detailed empirical work that he advocates in his methodological writings.^9
The failure to put forward a developed research programme was partially
the result of their deepening despair over what they saw as the domination
of social science and rationality by instrumental reason. Horkheimer in par-
ticular grew increasingly pessimistic in his later years about the possibility
of resisting the snare of technical rationality’s “iron cage.” In a late aphorism,
he writes, “to the extent that philosophy wants to be more than directions
that can be confirmed, i.e. science, it disregards speaker and listener and
176 • Christopher Craig Brittain
(^9) For examples of Adorno’s sociological writing on religion, see: Adorno 1994 and
2000b.